By Mulengera Reporters
Ugandan coffee farmers and exporters have disclosed what must happen for their government to serve them better under National Development Plan (NDP) III which NPA is already in the process to enact.
Their views were given by Owek Robert Waggwa Nsibirwa who is co-founder and CEO for Africa Coffee Academy. This was during the consultative meeting NPA (closely working with UNDP) recently organized at Serena Hotel under the theme; “Enhancing value addition for inclusive growth in Uganda.”
Nsibirwa’s topic was; “Towards action on strategic direction, interventions, value addition and inclusive growth.” Journalist Patrick Kamara, who moderated the session, run through Nsibirwa’s deeply rich CV in the coffee movement and said there couldn’t have been a better person to make that submission.
Nsibirwa said a lot of advantages and levers exist for Ugandan coffee farmers and exporters and highlighted minimum interventions that government ought to undertake and the rest will fall in place. The interventions include deliberately supporting formation of strong and well-regulated farmer associations to organize small holder farmers who he said are responsible for 99% of the 4m (60kg) bags of coffee Uganda annually produces.
He said that intervention will ensure quality production which is key to enhancing value addition and eventual access to the best markets and good prices.
“Value addition is extremely important because it’s the only way we can overcome volatility of prices. Otherwise everything is going well for us because we have abundant water supply for washing our coffee, electricity and labor,” said Nsibirwa who is also the Finance Minister for Buganda Kingdom. “We must have a plant through a PPP between us in private sector and government because we have the raw material.”
He said all that is required is political will and leadership that is determined to perceive things correctly because even the money needed to have the necessary plant equipment in place isn’t that much. He said it requires between $30m and $80m “but the private sector can’t manage doing this alone which is why government should come in.”
He said it was painful to reflect on the fact that US and India are operating very lucrative coffee processing plants largely reliant on coffee raw materials from Uganda. He said in absence of the required processing facilities in Uganda, many coffee exporters send their coffee to Egypt and India to be processed whereafter it’s returned to Uganda to be packaged and subsequently exported. He said this reduces profitability and amounts to donating job opportunities to laborers in the two countries. This is something President Museveni has always been very outspoken against.
Nsibirwa explained that once quality concerns are addressed, Uganda doesn’t even need to look to India or North America and Europe to find the market for it’s coffee. “The 1bn people we have on the African continent can actually consume this coffee,” he said. All that must be done is to invest in value addition so that consumers are assured the quality is comparable to coffee they consume from other countries.
He run through the opportunities underlying why coffee is more profitable today than ever before. He referenced on the fact that India, which 15 years ago had blocked importation of coffee from Uganda, is these days back in full swing and 10% of all coffee produced in Uganda is bought there. He commended UCDA efforts to ensure the Indian market was reopened. India now has 10 soluble coffee plants which Nsibirwa said are sure to remain operational the whole year round because they are assured of raw materials supplies from Uganda.
The other big market for Ugandan coffee Nsibirwa reflected upon is Ecuador. He said it’s shameful that coffee, which is bought so cheaply from us here because of limited value addition, fetches so much cash once in India or Ecuador where it’s converted into soluble form and a kilogram ends up going at $10-$12. He said with adequate processing facilities in place, Ugandan producers can earn as much price too from their coffee.
All that must happen is the mild government intervention investing a few millions of dollars into value addition processes.
Nsibirwa also profiled the coffee sector in Uganda giving quick figures to illustrate his point. That 80% of our coffee is Robusta which is dry processed/not fully washed before exportation. Yet with modest investment in value addition, we can grow our coffee earnings to between $200-$500 per ton. The remaining 20% (or 800,000 bags) of our coffee exports is Arabica which is only half washed before exportation. He said overall, we can double the $500m we currently earn from coffee exports annually once government comes in to comprehensively make the necessary value addition investments. At 4m (60kg) bags annually, Uganda is currently the biggest exporter of coffee in Africa only 2nd to (the continent’s largest producer) Ethiopia which by deliberate government policy consumes half of the coffee it produces. (For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).
